A comparative exploration of thermal, radiative and pollutant emission characteristics of oil burner flame using palm oil biodiesel-diesel blend fuel and diesel fuel

The lack of petroleum resources and environmental problems of petroleum fuels have led to growing interest in biodiesel fuels. This study compares diesel fuel and palm oil biodiesel-diesel blend fuel in terms of their effect on the thermal, radiative and pollutant emission characteristics of the flame of an oil burner. The blend fuel consisted of diesel fuel and palm oil biodiesel, which was synthesized by transesterification reaction. In the experiments, the same mass flow rates of B20 palm oil biodiesel-diesel blend fuel and diesel fuel were separately combusted in a laboratory furnace. Then, we measured the flame temperature, the total and luminous radiations of the flame and the concentrations of CO and NOx pollutant emissions. The results indicate that the blend fuel, compared with diesel fuel, produces a voluminous flame. Further, although the flame of blend fuel has a lower temperature than diesel fuel flame does, blend fuel produces a higher concentration of intermediate soot particles in the flame reaction zone. This phenomenon, in comparison with the case of diesel fuel, increases the IR wavelengths emitted from flame and enhances the average radiation heat transfer of flame from 2080 to 5094 W/m². Also, the use of blend fuel instead of diesel fuel enhances the luminosity of flame and decreases the NOx emission significantly from 33 to 11 ppm.